Shaun Phillips and The Hat of All Hats

The night went by so fast. It was time to get up and get ready for school but I was nice and comfortable under the covers. I didn’t want to move.

“Good morning Shaun. “ Mom knocked on my door. “It’s time to get up.”

“Ugh!”

I dragged myself out of bed and got dressed. I smelled maple syrup as I came downstairs.

“Eat up quickly, Shaun. The school bus will be here soon.” Mom handed me a plate of pancakes.

I gulped them down and ran out to catch the bus, just making it! This happened a lot on Mondays.

The bus pulled into the school parking lot and let us off. I headed right inside the building and up the stairs to Mrs. Bodeen’s classroom. Mrs. Bodeen is the toughest teacher I’ve ever had. She gives us tons of homework and always pushes us to try harder.

I don’t like tons of homework but I really do like Mrs. Bodeen. She writes on the board with colored chalk and she plays music while we do journal writing. But, the greatest thing about Mrs. Bodeen is that her jokes are so lame that you can’t help but laugh.

“Good morning everyone!” Mrs. Bodeen announced as the school bell rang and we all settled into the classroom. “I have a question for you as we start the day. Who is a chicken’s favorite composer? Bach! Get it? Bawk, bawk, bawk!”

Yup, she really said that!

Anyway, we have a big classroom and my desk is right in the front row. The bad thing about sitting right up front is that you get called on a lot. But the good thing about sitting right up front is that you’re closer to the door when the bell rings!

Johnny Somers and Walter Reynolds are my best friends and they’ve been my best friends for a long time. They are both in my class but Mrs. Bodeen says we talk too much when we sit together. So as you can probably imagine, our desks are far apart. I sit up front. Johnny and Walter both sit in the back row but there’s a girl named Suzie Leanords who sits in between them. I wish we could all sit together but that’s okay. Johnny is on my soccer team and Walter lives a few streets down from me so I get to see them a lot.

The first subject of the day was Language Arts. We were starting a new story and Mrs. Bodeen handed out a copy of the book to each of us.

“This is a story about a brother and sister who go on a sailing adventure with their grandfather but get lost out on the high sea. Every year I do this book with the class and most of the students have really enjoyed it. It also ties in to what we’ll be doing in Social Studies later.” Mrs. Bodeen read the beginning paragraph out loud and then she told us to read the rest of the chapter as homework.

Next, we went over the new list of spelling words and wrote sentences for each one. Now you’ve heard me say before that I don’t believe in spelling words. But I tried to write my sentences as fast as I could so at least I wouldn’t have to do it as homework.

“Okay time is up on writing.” Mrs. Bodeen walked up and down through the rows of desks. “What you didn’t finish in class will be homework. Now, why don’t we all get up for a moment and stretch and then I will have you get out your math books please.”

We were given a worksheet with multiplication problems on it.

Science class came after math and we were starting the lesson on weather. We watched a short video about cloud formations and then played a fun trivia game to see what we remembered.

“I can tell you were all paying attention. Great job everyone!” Mrs. Bodeen said.

She let us go to lunch a few minutes early. I grabbed the lunch box my mom had packed me and headed to the cafeteria. The great thing about bringing your own food is that you get to avoid the long lines in the lunch room. I went straight to get a table and I saved a couple seats for Johnny and Walter.

“I went hiking with my cousins over the weekend.” Walter mumbled while stuffing a hotdog into his mouth. “What did you guys do?”

“I went to work with my dad.” Johnny bragged. “His construction company is working on a new building and I got to tag along there. I carried boards and stirred paint up. My dad even gave me $20 for helping him. It was great!”

Every Monday I heard an exciting story about something Walter did over the weekend or somewhere Johnny had been. I knew I had something even better to share. I had held my tongue for over a week but I was about to burst. The secret was coming out.

“My dad and I took a drive in a really sweet sports car yesterday!” I said, grinning ear to ear.

“No way!” Johnny shouted with a mouthful of food.

“When did your dad buy a sports car?” Walter asked.

“Well it’s kind of a long story. My dad didn’t really buy a sports car but we had one for a little while.”

“Did he steal it?” Walter asked.

“What? No!”

“Then what are you talking about?” Johnny added.

“Okay guys look. You have to promise not to say a word about this to anyone. I’m serious!”

“Deal!” Walter said.

“Deal!” Johnny shouted even louder.

Then we all fist bumped.

“So this all started when I went to the department store with Katie and Mom.” I told them all about my hat and the excellent things that had gone on at home.

“I can’t believe you waited all this time to tell us about it!” Walter shouted.

“What if we came over to your house? Could you make something great happen while we’re there?” Johnny asked.

“Hello boys.”

We looked up to find Mrs. Wilson standing by our table, holding a plate of cafeteria fries.

“It seems as though we made more fries than necessary today. There are plenty of extras, would you like some?”

“Oh yeah! “ Johnny said and took the plate from her. “Thank you!”

“Thank you Mrs. Wilson.” Walter added.

She smiled and walked back to the kitchen.

“Isn’t this great?” Johnny asked me.

“I don’t know. Mrs. Wilson lives right across the street from me and she is always coming over and being really nosy. There is something weird about her.”

“What do you mean?” Walter asked. “We just got free food! That’s not weird, that’s great! Now tell us more about your hat. What else did you make happen?”

Johnny and Walter tried to change the subject back to my hat but I couldn’t help feeling that Mrs. Wilson was on to my secret. After all, she had showed up right after the dragon appeared in my house and again after me and my dad’s excellent drive. I wondered if the fries were just an excuse to listen in on us.

The bell rang for lunch to end and the three of us headed outside for recess. Both Johnny and Walter kept talking about my hat but I had to stop them.

“Listen, we can’t talk about the hat here at school. I wasn’t even supposed to tell you guys about it.” I whispered to them.

“But why? No one can hear us talking about it. It’s loud out here.” Johnny said. “Tell me more about the werewolves. Did you get up close enough to pat one?”

“No, I didn’t get up close enough to pat one! They were huge and vicious looking! Plus, my parents made me stay inside the whole time.”

“That’s too bad.” Walter said. “I wonder if werewolves like to play fetch. That would be awesome!”

“Alright! If you guys come over to my house I promise I will show you the hat. But we cannot talk about it anymore at school!”

My friends were disappointed. However, they agreed to keep it quiet and we made our way over to the swings.

Suzie Leonards walked by the swings and waved to me as I was pushing off the ground. I stopped and waved back.

“Oh look, its Shaun’s girlfriend!” Johnny yelled.

“She’s not my girlfriend!”

“Sure she’s not!”

I didn’t like it when Johnny and Walter teased me about it but I did kind of like Suzie. She wore her hair in a long ponytail and she carried a superhero backpack. Suzie was also the only girl I knew who could make braces look cool!

The bell rang. We jumped off the swings and lined up to go back into the classroom. Mrs. Bodeen was waiting for us and she assigned a new project that sounded great!

“We’re beginning a new chapter in Social Studies. We’ll be discussing The Age of Exploration and learning about the famous explorers.” She said with excitement and wrote EXPLORERS on the board with green chalk. “Who were these people and what does it mean to be an explorer? Shaun what do you think?”

I wanted to come up with something awesome. I imagined boarding a space ship headed for Saturn with a team of the world’s best scientists. We’d put a flag on one of Saturn’s rings to let everyone know we had been there. Then we’d return to earth and share our findings with the authorities. We’d be given medals for our bravery and we’d be talked about on all the news channels! I tried to speak but I got nervous and it didn’t come out sounding as cool as I wanted it to.

“Space travel…..scientists..uh…” I sunk down in my seat.

The class laughed hysterically.

“Space travel is very important.” Mrs. Bodeen responded. “These famous men we’ll be learning about are also very important. They traveled around the world exploring new territories. You will each do a project on one of them and present it in class. I think you will find this interesting.”

Mrs. Bodeen walked to the back of the classroom. She put a large map down on the big table and had us gather around it. She pointed to different routes that some of the explorers took.

“Are there any questions?”

“Can we work in teams?”

“This is an individual project.” Mrs. Bodeen answered.

“Is there extra credit we can do for this?”

“Do we get to choose who we write about?”

“Where are we going to find all the information for the reports?”

“Can we have a pizza party on presentation day?”

The questions kept coming. Some of the kids were really interested in this project. Some of the kids complained but I thought school projects were a lot more fun than doing worksheets and taking tests!

“This assignment is due Friday. I will give you plenty of time in class every day this week to work on it.” Mrs. Bodeen said. “You can find information online and you can check books out of the school library. In addition to doing an oral presentation, I expect you to write at least one page worth of material as well.”

Then she picked up a little bucket and started walking around the classroom.

“This pail contains slips of paper. Each slip of paper has the name of an explorer on it. Whoever you draw out of the pail is the one you will report on.”

She came to me and I pulled out a name. FERDINAND MAGELLAN